Techniques for key provisioning in a trusted execution environment

ABSTRACT

Techniques for securely provisioning a set of enclaves are described. A contract owner may register with a shared registry. A subset of enclaves may be selected to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves. A keyshare may be requested from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned. The requested keyshares may be received from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned. For each of the selected enclaves, the received keyshares may be sent for verification by the enclave. Each of the selected enclaves may send an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/547,736, entitled “TECHNIQUES FOR KEY PROVISIONING IN A TRUSTED EXECUTION ENVIRONMENT” filed Aug. 18, 2017, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

In some devices utilizing trusted execution environments, sensitive portions of an application may be executed and/or stored in a secure environment, called an enclave, to protect both code and data from compromise. An application such as a distributed ledger that supports private, smart contracts may use these enclaves to preserve confidentiality of the smart contract by encrypting the state of the contract within the enclave. To accomplish this, the enclave may generate encryption keys that can be saved in local, secured storage provided by a secure platform, such as Software Guard Extensions (SGX), in one example. However, for many applications (including most distributed ledgers) this approach is insufficient. Provisioning enclaves on a single server may create both a single point of failure (destroying the enclave or its keys prevents any future access to the contract and its state) and a bottleneck for performance. Thus, improved techniques that may not require a single provisioning server are desired.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of an operating environment.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a trusted enclave system.

FIG. 3 illustrates an architecture of a trusted enclave system.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 7A illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 7B illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 7C illustrates an embodiment of a system.

FIG. 8 illustrates a logic flow according to an embodiment.

FIG. 9 illustrates an article of manufacture according to an embodiment.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a centralized system.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a distributed system.

FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of a computing architecture.

FIG. 13 illustrates an embodiment of a communications architecture

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques for securely provisioning a set of enclaves are described. In some embodiments, provisioning may be performed so no single enclave can deny access to the contract state, eliminating a single point of failure. In some embodiments, provisioning may be performed with a common encryption key that does not depend on the trustworthiness of any single organization or individual. Embodiments may distribute key generation across a multiplicity of “provisioning servers.” Specifically, to provision a set of enclaves with encryption keys, a user may contact several provisioning servers (the number of servers may depend on a risk tolerance, with a risk level being the inverse of the number of provisioning servers). Each provisioning server may produce a random “keyshare” that is sent to each of the enclaves through a secure channel. Each of the enclaves may combine the keyshares to derive the final encryption key. As long as at least one of the provisioning services produces a truly random keyshare, the resulting encryption key may be unique and unpredictable. In other words, no provisioning service will possess sufficient information to construct the encryption key. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Previous techniques for enclave secret provisioning were performed using a single server to directly provision a single enclave with a secret. Provisioning enclaves on a single server creates both a single point of failure (destroying the enclave or its keys prevents any future access to the contract and its state) and a bottleneck for performance. The techniques described herein may provide several advantages to previous provisioning techniques. For example, a multiplicity of enclaves may be provisioned with a single key without exposing the key outside of the enclaves. Further, no single entity may be trusted to perform the provisioning; so long as a single provisioning service behaves appropriately, the generated key may not be exposed. Still further, since no provisioning service contains sufficient information, keyshares may be archived by the provisioning services so that additional enclaves can be provisioned with the key at a later time.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, the detailed descriptions which follow may be presented in terms of program procedures executed on a computer or network of computers. These procedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms, such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mental operations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a human operator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of the operations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments. Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines for performing operations of various embodiments include general purpose digital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performing these operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer as selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently related to a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose machines may be used with programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these machines will appear from the description given.

FIGS. 1-4 describe trusted enclave environments and systems that may be used with one or more of the embodiments described herein. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of an operating environment 100 such as may be representative of some embodiments. In operating environment 100, which may include remote enclave authentication, a system 102 may include a server 110 and a processing device 105 coupled via a network 140. Server 110 and processing device 105 may exchange data 130 via network 140, and data 130 may include executable instructions 132 for execution within processing device 105. In some embodiments, data 130 may be include data values, executable instructions, and/or a combination thereof. Network 140 may be based on any of a variety (or combination) of communications technologies by which signals may be exchanged, including without limitation, wired technologies employing electrically and/or optically conductive cabling, and wireless technologies employing infrared, radio frequency, and/or other forms of wireless transmission.

In various embodiments, processing device 105 may incorporate a processor component 150, a storage 160, controls 125 (for instance, manually-operable controls), a display 135 and/or a network interface 115 to couple processing device 105 to network 140. Processor component 150 may incorporate security credentials 180, a security microcode 178, metadata storage 135 storing metadata 136, a security subsystem 174, one or more processor cores 170, one or more caches 172 and/or a graphics controller 176. Storage 160 may include volatile storage 164, non-volatile storage 162, and/or one or more storage controllers 165. Processing device 105 may include a controller 120 (for example, a security controller) that may include security credentials 180. Controller 120 may also include one or more of the embodiments described herein for unified hardware acceleration of hash functions.

Volatile storage 164 may include one or more storage devices that are volatile in as much as they require the continuous provision of electric power to retain information stored therein. Operation of the storage device(s) of volatile storage 164 may be controlled by storage controller 165, which may receive commands from processor component 150 and/or other components of processing device 105 to store and/or retrieve information therein, and may convert those commands between the bus protocols and/or timings by which they are received and other bus protocols and/or timings by which the storage device(s) of volatile storage 164 are coupled to the storage controller 165. By way of example, the one or more storage devices of volatile storage 164 may be made up of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices coupled to storage controller 165 via an interface, for instance, in which row and column addresses, along with byte enable signals, are employed to select storage locations, while the commands received by storage controller 165 may be conveyed thereto along one or more pairs of digital serial transmission lines.

Non-volatile storage 162 may be made up of one or more storage devices that are non-volatile inasmuch as they are able to retain information stored therein without the continuous provision of electric power. Operation of storage device(s) of non-volatile storage 162 may be controlled by storage controller 165 (for example, a different storage controller than used to operate volatile storage 164), which may receive commands from processor component 150 and/or other components of processing device 105 to store and/or retrieve information therein, and may convert those commands between the bus protocols and/or timings by which they are received and other bus protocols and/or timings by which the storage device(s) of non-volatile storage 162 are coupled to storage controller 165. By way of example, one or more storage devices of non-volatile storage 162 may be made up of ferromagnetic disk-based drives (hard drives) operably coupled to storage controller 165 via a digital serial interface, for instance, in which portions of the storage space within each such storage device are addressed by reference to tracks and sectors. In contrast, commands received by storage controller 165 may be conveyed thereto along one or more pairs of digital serial transmission lines conveying read and write commands in which those same portions of the storage space within each such storage device are addressed in an entirely different manner.

Processor component 150 may include at least one processor core 170 to execute instructions of an executable routine in at least one thread of execution. However, processor component 150 may incorporate more than one of processor cores 170 and/or may employ other processing architecture techniques to support multiple threads of execution by which the instructions of more than one executable routine may be executed in parallel. Cache(s) 172 may include a multilayer set of caches that may include separate first level (L1) caches for each processor core 170 and/or a larger second level (L2) cache for multiple ones of processor cores 170.

In some embodiments in which processing device 105 includes display 135 and/or graphics controller 176, one or more cores 170 may, as a result of executing the executable instructions of one or more routines, operate controls 125 and/or the display 135 to provide a user interface and/or to perform other graphics-related functions. Graphics controller 176 may include a graphics processor core (for instance, a graphics processing unit (GPU)) and/or component (not shown) to perform graphics-related operations, including and not limited to, decompressing and presenting a motion video, rendering a 2D image of one or more objects of a three-dimensional (3D) model, etc.

Non-volatile storage 162 may store data 130, including executable instructions 132. In the aforementioned exchanges of data 130 between processing device 105 and server 110, processing device 105 may maintain a copy of data 130, for instance, for longer term storage within non-volatile storage 162. Volatile storage 164 may store encrypted data 134 and/or metadata 136. Encrypted data 134 may be made up of at least a portion of data 130 stored within volatile storage 164 in encrypted and/or compressed form according to some embodiments described herein. Executable instructions 132 may make up one or more executable routines such as an operating system (OS), device drivers and/or one or more application routines to be executed by one or more processor cores 170 of processor component 150. Other portions of data 130 may include data values that are employed by one or more processor cores 170 as inputs to performing various tasks that one or more processor cores 170 are caused to perform by execution of executable instructions 132.

As part of performing executable instructions 132, one or more processor cores 170 may retrieve portions of executable instructions 132 and store those portions within volatile storage 164 in a more readily executable form in which addresses are derived, indirect references are resolved and/or links are more fully defined among those portions in the process often referred to as loading. As familiar to those skilled in the art, such loading may occur under the control of a loading routine and/or a page management routine of an OS that may be among executable instructions 132. As portions of data 130 (including portions of executable instructions 132) are so exchanged between non-volatile storage 162 and volatile storage 164, security subsystem 174 may convert those portions of data 130 between what may be their original uncompressed and unencrypted form as stored within non-volatile storage 162, and a form that is at least encrypted and that may be stored within volatile storage 164 as encrypted data 134 accompanied by metadata 136.

Security subsystem 174 may include hardware logic configured or otherwise controlled by security microcode 178 to implement the logic to perform such conversions during normal operation of processing device 105. Security microcode 178 may include indications of connections to be made between logic circuits within the security subsystem 174 to form such logic. Alternatively or additionally, security microcode 178 may include executable instructions that form such logic when so executed. Either security subsystem 174 may execute such instructions of the security microcode 178, or security subsystem 174 may be controlled by at least one processor core 170 that executes such instructions. Security subsystem 174 and/or at least one processor core 170 may be provided with access to security microcode 178 during initialization of the processing device 105, including initialization of the processor component 150. Further, security subsystem 174 may include one or more of the embodiments described herein for unified hardware acceleration of hash functions.

Security credentials 180 may include one or more values employed by security subsystem 174 as inputs to its performance of encryption of data 130 and/or of decryption of encrypted data 134 as part of performing conversions there between during normal operation of processing device 105. More specifically, security credentials 180 may include any of a variety of types of security credentials, including and not limited to public and/or private keys, seeds for generating random numbers, instructions to generate random numbers, certificates, signatures, ciphers, and/or the like. Security subsystem 174 may be provided with access to security credentials 180 during initialization of the processing device 105.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a trusted enclave system 200. Trusted enclave system 200 may include application 201, which may include one or more applications executing on a software and/or hardware platform. A few non-limiting examples of applications that may include secret data in need of protection are financial applications, electronic banking applications, and health or medical applications. In some embodiments, application 201 may include an untrusted partition 202, which may be a partition of application 201 that includes instructions and data that are generally unprotected from an attack. Privileged code 206 may include code of a platform that has special access, or privilege, to data within applications running on the platform. Privileged code may include the operating system, a virtual machine manager, system BIOS, or system management mode, for example. While these exemplary types of privileged code may be used here, it can be appreciated that other types of code may permanently or temporarily include privilege.

If malicious code were to infect privileged system code 206, it may have access to untrusted partition 202, since privileged system code 206 generally has access to application 201. Using a trusted enclave system, however, certain data may be kept secret and secure, even from an attack originating from privileged system code 206. In an example, application 201 may create a trusted enclave 204 at 210 to protect secret data and secure data 216. The creation of a trusted enclave 204 may generate a secure memory location, sometimes within a processor of a platform, accessible using the techniques described herein. Trusted enclave 204 may be configured to support certain trusted functions that may execute on secure data 216. Untrusted partition 202 may call a trusted function at 212 using a call gate 214, which may be a combination of software and hardware configured to accept certain trusted function calls at trusted enclave 204. The resulted of a trusted function call may be returned from trusted enclave 204 to untrusted partition 202, while secure data 216 remains protected within trusted enclave 204. In this manner, secure data 216 may be accessed using a limited set of trusted functions, secure data 216 may still be used within application 201, however, as shown by blockage 208, privileged system code 208 may be prevented from accessing secure data 216.

Trusted enclave system 200 allows for each application running on a platform to defend its own secret data using secure enclaves, significantly reducing the attack surface available to malicious code, especially malicious code that has infiltrated privileged system code 206. While the embodiment described within FIG. 2 illustrates a single platform, trusted enclave systems may be used within networked distributed systems, such as Internet of Things (IoT). In these systems, as described later, a centralized trusted authority may be used to authenticate secure enclaves. However, as described below, improved techniques may circumvent the use of a centralized trusted authority and allow trusted enclaves running of multiple distributed processors to authenticate one another.

FIG. 3 illustrates an architecture of a trusted enclave system 300. Trusted enclave system 300 may include an application environment 301, privileged environment 302, and exposed hardware 304, each discussed in turn now. Application environment 301 may include one or more enclaves, 306, 308, each accessed using one or more SGX user runtime modules 310, 312. In this manner, each enclave 306, 308, may be accessed in a secure manner by privileged environment 302. Privileged environment 302 may include an SGX module 314, and pages tables 314. SGX module 314 may include a combination of software and hardware, and may be configured to request secret information, or perform trusted functions on secret information, from an enclave 306, 308 via SGX user runtimes 310, 312. Page tables 316 may store one or more memory locations for secret data stored within exposed hardware 304, for example. Exposed hardware 304 may include a computing platform 318, as described herein, and may include one or more processors configured to perform the techniques set forth within.

Platform 318 may include a storage device storing enclave page cache (EPC) 320 and enclave page cache map (EPCM) 322. EPC 320 may be a memory that includes a structure EPCM 322 for associating a set of access permissions with an enclave. EPC 320 may contain protected code and data in pages, which in some embodiments may be 4KB pages in a non-limiting example. EPC 320 may store enclave pages and SGX structures, and EPC pages may be valid or invalid. A valid EPC page may contain either an enclave page or an SGX structure. The security attributes for each EPC page may be held in an internal micro-architecture structure called EPCM, discussed below.

EPCM 322 may contain metadata of enclave pages and may be a protected structure used by a processor to track the contents of EPC 320. EPCM 322 may be comprised of a series of entries with exactly one entry for each page in EPC 320. It can be appreciated that alternate embodiments may not require a 1:1 correlation. EPCM 322 may be managed by the processor as part of various SGX instructions and may not be directly accessible to software or to devices. The format of EPCM 322 may be microarchitectural and is implementation dependent. However, logically, each EPCM entry may hold one or more of the following: whether the EPC page is valid or invalid; the enclave instance that owns the page; the type of page (REG, TCS, VA, SECS); the virtual address through which the enclave can access the page; the enclave specified read/write/execute permissions on that page; and/or whether the page is accessible or not (BLOCKED or UNBLOCKED). The EPCM structure may be used by the processor in the address translation flow to enforce access-control on the enclave pages loaded into the EPC. Logically it may provide an additional secure layer of access control in addition to “legacy” segmentation, paging tables, and extended paging tables mechanisms.

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram for a system 400. In one embodiment, the system 400 may comprise one or more components. Although the system 400 shown in FIG. 4 has a limited number of elements in a certain topology, it may be appreciated that the system 400 may include more or less elements in alternate topologies as desired for a given implementation. The system 400 may include a plurality of modules, which may each include one or more processing units, storage units, network interfaces, or other hardware and software elements described in more detail herein. In some embodiments, these modules may be included within a single device. In other embodiments, one or more modules may be part of a distributed architecture, an example of which is described with respect to FIG. 11.

In an embodiment, each module of system 400 may comprise without limitation, a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a cellular telephone, a device connected to the IoT, a handset, a personal digital assistant, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, or a wearable computing device such as a smart watch. Further, modules may include a server, which may comprise without limitation a single server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a mini-computer, a mainframe computer, a supercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, or any combination thereof.

In various embodiments, system 400 may comprise or implement multiple components or modules. As used herein the terms “component” and “module” are intended to refer to computer-related entities, comprising either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. For example, a component and/or module can be implemented as a process running on a processor, a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a server and the server can be a component and/or module. One or more components and/or modules can reside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component and/or module can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers as desired for a given implementation. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

The various devices within system 400, and components and/or modules within a device of system 400, may be communicatively coupled via various types of communications media as indicated by various lines or arrows. The devices, components and/or modules may coordinate operations between each other. The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directional exchange of information. For instance, the devices, components and/or modules may communicate information in the form of signals communicated over the communications media. The information can be implemented as signals allocated to various signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal. Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages. Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplary connections within a device include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and bus interfaces. Exemplary connections between devices may comprise network connections over a wired or wireless communications network.

In various embodiments, the various modules and storages of system 400 may be organized as a distributed system. A distributed system typically comprises multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers may interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal, such as solving computational problems. For example, a computational problem may be divided into many tasks, each of which is solved by one computer. A computer program that runs in a distributed system is called a distributed program, and distributed programming is the process of writing such programs. Examples of a distributed system may include, without limitation, a client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shared database architecture, and other types of distributed systems. It is worthy to note that although some embodiments may utilize a distributed system when describing various enhanced techniques for data retrieval, it may be appreciated that the enhanced techniques for data retrieval may be implemented by a single computing device as well. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

System 400 may include SGX enclave 404. While enclave 404 may be illustrated as an SGX enclave, it can be appreciated that other types of enclaves may be used in some embodiments. In this example, enclave 404 may be part of an SGX, which may allow devices to execute sensitive portions of an application, such as client application 402, in a secure environment, called an enclave, to protect both code and data from compromise. In distributed applications, such as IoT systems, in one example, enclaves residing on different processors may be required to mutually authenticate to establish secure communication channels. Currently, many solutions that allow two remote SGX enclaves to authenticate one another rely upon a centralized trusted authority. Some solutions, like TLS authentication, may rely on the interaction with a centralized Certification Authority (CA) for distribution and verification of public-key certificates. The certificates in these instances may be issued to individuals or corporations and expose individual identity.

The system set forth within FIG. 4 may use the authentication provided by the Intel Attestation Server (IAS) for any SGX enclave without the need for a centralized trusted authority. It can be appreciated that other types of attestation servers may be used in various embodiments. In some embodiments, authentication may be based on the hardware enhanced privacy ID (EPID) rather than an identifier connected to an individual or application. In this manner, the privacy of the individual platform or its user may be preserved. Authentication, in some embodiments, may therefore be anonymous, proving that the enclave is running in valid SGX hardware while protecting the identity of the device and/or user. An enclave may then trust attestation by the remote enclave of the code that it is running. In this manner, techniques described herein may provide several advantages including, allowing for the protection of the identity of SGX devices and owners, since in some embodiments, a public-key certificate may be issued anonymously to an SGX enclave running on valid SGX hardware. Further, techniques described herein may require minimal modifications to SGX-based distributed applications that may need to be strengthened with authentication. Still further, as mentioned above, techniques described herein may provide authentication between enclaves without the need for a centralized authority.

As illustrated within FIG. 4, a client application 402, which may be running on a client device as described herein, may execute and/or store data using a secure enclave, such as SGX enclave 404. SGX enclave may reside on one or more processors of a client device in some embodiments. While specific examples are used throughout, the techniques described may be used with any processor within various types of trusted execution environments. As set forth above, while enclave 404 may be illustrated as an SGX enclave, other secure enclaves may be used in some embodiments. SGX enclave 404 may generate data that to be sent to other secure enclaves, such as SGX enclaves 410-a-n which may reside on one or more server devices, which may each respectively run one or more server applications 408-a-n, where a and n represent positive integers. Each of SGX enclaves 410-a-n may reside on different processors, and thus may be required to be authenticated to establish secure data communication channels with SGX enclave 104.

In an embodiment, an SGX enclave 404 may generate an SGX report containing a cryptographic hash of the data using any well-known cryptographic hashing algorithm, such as SHA-1 or SHA-256, for example. Client application 402 may generate a linkable quote on the SGX report, which may be signed by a Quoting Enclave (QE) (not shown) which may, in turn, generate a quote that contains the report and the cryptographic hash. In some embodiments, a quoting enclave may be included within a device as a separate component from an SGX enclave, and may be configured to generate quotes as set forth herein. At 403, SGX enclave 404 may request for attestation of the quote Q from attestation service 406, IAS in some examples, which may reside on a remote server. The attestation response 405 from attestation service 406 may be signed with a public IAS Report Key and may contain a copy of the quote, as illustrated.

Client application 402 may, at 407, send the quote, the IAS attestation report on said quote and the data, to one or more other enclaves residing on different processors, such as SGX enclaves 410-a-n. These enclaves may verify the validity of the quote by checking the signature on the IAS response with the IAS Report Key. The recipient enclave may verify that the cryptographic hash of the data corresponds to the hash within the quote. In this manner, the data may be trusted to come directly from the sending enclave.

Now turning to FIGS. 5-8, which represent one or more embodiments of provisioning systems configured according to the techniques described herein. In the following, communications between any two entities may be secure and authenticated using public key cryptography. Further, each community may have a predefined policy that identifies the contract owner and which enclave and provisioning service (PS) identities are acceptable. Further, the availability of a distributed ledger (or another secure shared registry that can be accessed by the provisioning services) may be assumed. Such a distributed ledger may be implemented using various techniques, such as blockchain, in some embodiments. In general, a distributed ledger (also called shared ledger) is a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. While blockchain is described as an example, it can be appreciated that other protocols for a distributed ledger may be used in some embodiments. Throughout the description, the following variables may be used:

CO: contract owner

OPK: public key of the CO

CID: contract identifier

PS_(i): the i^(th) provisioning service

PSPK_(i): the public signing key PS,

PSSK_(i): the private signing key PS,

E_(j): the j^(th) enclave

APK_(j): authentication public key for enclave j

EPK_(j): encryption public key for enclave j

S_(i,j): plaintext keyshare created by provisioning service PS_(i)for enclave E_(j)

EKS_(i,j): encrypted keyshare for E_(j) produced by PS_(i)

K: The key derived from all the shares

KEK_(i)—Key encryption key for E_(i). Derived as a function of CID and SGX Enclave Seal Key. It is used to encrypt K with authenticated encryption

EK_(i): Authenticated encryption of K with KEK_(i) (contains IV and MAC if needed)

FIG. 5 illustrates a system 500 according to an embodiment. System 500 may include contract owner 502, distributed ledger 504, provisioning services 506, and enclaves 508 for executing smart contracts (referenced herein as “contract enclaves”). Each of contract owner 502, distributed ledger 504, provisioning services 506, and contract enclaves 508 may be included within a distributed computing device as described herein. For example, contract enclaves 508 may be included within a server, or many servers, connected using the techniques described herein. In some embodiments, a distributed computing device may include one or more elements, for example a provisioning service and one or more contract enclaves. However, in other embodiments, each element may be part of a separate distributed computing device. Provisioning services and enclaves may be comprised of a combination of hardware and software, and may implement one or more of the techniques described herein. Each element within the distributed architecture may be connected using secure channels, and messages used for provisioning as described herein may be secured using public key authentication and encryption.

Distributed ledger 504 may be a shared ledger in a distributed computing environment. Distributed ledger 504 may be a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. In some embodiments, there is no central administrator or centralized data storage used to implement distributed ledger 504. As set forth above, while blockchain is one type of data structure used to implement a distributed ledger, it can be appreciated that other types of distributed ledger technology may be used with embodiments described herein.

Techniques described herein leverage the use of a distributed ledger 504 in a distributed architecture to securely provision a plurality of enclaves 508 without maintaining a central authority. In this manner, techniques may securely provision a set of enclaves 508 (so that no single enclave can deny access to the contract state) with a common encryption key that does not depend on the trustworthiness of any single organization or individual. Key generation may be distributed across a multiplicity of “provisioning servers,” also referred to as provisioning services 506 throughout.

Specifically, to provision a set of enclaves 508 with encryption keys, contract owner 502 may contact several provisioning services 506 (the number of servers depends on the risk tolerance, which may be received by a contract owner within a policy or otherwise in a predetermined manner). Each provisioning service may produce a random “keyshare” that is sent to each of the enclaves through a secure channel. A keyshare, as used herein, may include a randomly generated portion of an encryption key, each of which is then signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare. Each of the enclaves may combine the keyshares to derive the final encryption key. In this manner, if at least one of the provisioning services produces a truly random keyshare, the resulting encryption key will be unique and unpredictable. That is, no provisioning service will possess sufficient information to construct the encryption key.

Before an enclave is provisioned it may be required to register its authentication (APK) and encryption (EPK) public keys with the distributed ledger 504. Contract owner 502 may be configured to register a contract identifier 501 with distributed ledger 504. In this manner, distributed ledger 504 may be used to verify the contract identifier, and the APK and EPK of each enclave through the provisioning techniques described herein. Next, contract owner 502 may be configured to select for provisioning a set of contract enclaves from among a pool of available contract enclaves 508, and request provisioning secrets 503, i.e., keyshares, from provisioning services 506. In an embodiment, a policy for a community of devices within a distributed network may set forth a number of requirements, including the identification of enclaves and provisioning services that may be used. For example, specific devices may be identified, or requirements that must be met by a particular device may be required. These requirements may include processor, memory, latency, security, or software requirements, among others. Provisioning services 506 may be configured to verify the contract identifier and contract enclaves 505 with distributed ledger 504, as described within FIGS. 7A-C.

FIG. 6 illustrates a system 600 according to an embodiment. FIG. 6 includes like-numbered elements to FIG. 5, such as contract owner 602, distributed ledger 604, provisioning services 606, and contract enclaves 608. At 601, contract owner 602 may be configured to validate provisioning secrets with each of the selected contract enclaves 608. Then each of the selected contract enclaves 608 may be configured to return validated secrets 603 to contract owner 602. Finally, validated secrets 605 may be registered with the distributed ledger 604. These operations are set forth more specifically with respect to FIGS. 7A-7C, discussed below.

FIG. 7A illustrates a system 700 according to an embodiment. System 700 may include a contract owner 702 and provisioning service 704. To provision one or more enclaves, contract owner 702 may first register the CID (contract identifier) and OPK (the public key of the contract owner) with a distributed ledger. Once the CID and OPK are registered, at 701, the CO may request a keyshare from each provisioning service for each enclave to be provisioned. That is, for M enclaves and N provisioning services, there will be a total of M*N keyshares created.

To provision a specific enclave Ej with an encryption key, the contract owner 702 may contact a set of provisioning services {P1, . . . PN} with the CID, and the authentication and encryption public keys for the enclave (APKj and EPKj, as illustrated at 701 of FIG. 7A. Each provisioning service, such as provisioning service 704, may use the distributed ledger to verify the identity of the contract owner 702 (using the provided OPK) and the authentication and encryption keys of the enclave. Once the contract owner 702 and enclave keys have been verified, a provisioning service PSi 704 may generate a random keyshare Si,j. The provisioning service may sign with its private key (PSSKi) the keyshare (Si,j), the contract identifier (CID), the contract owner's identity (OPK), and the enclave's encryption key (EPK). The provisioning service 704 may then encrypt the keyshare and signature with the enclave's public key (EPK) as follows and return to contract owner 702 at 703: EKSi,j=encrypt(EPKj , Si,j|sign(PSSKi, Si,j|SID|OPK|APKi).

FIG. 7B illustrates a system 725 according to an embodiment. System 725 may include a contract owner 706 and enclave 708. As the final step in provisioning an enclave 708, the contract owner 706 may send, at 705, to the enclave the collection of encrypted secrets and corresponding signing keys: {<EKS1,j, PSPK1>, . . . <EKSN,j, PSPKN>} along with the CID and OPK. The enclave may decrypt each of the encrypted secrets, verify the signature of the provisioning service, the CID and OPK with a distributed ledger. Next, enclave 708 may derive the KEKi from the CID and its Seal Key, derive a secret key K from the received keyshares, use the KEKi for authenticated encryption of K to produce its encrypted version EKi (including IV and MAC if necessary), and returns a signature on all of the inputs and EKi at 707.

FIG. 7C illustrates a system 750 according to an embodiment. System 750 may include member 710 and enclave 712. Member 710 may be a device within a community of a distributed system and may provision enclave 712 as follows. The contract owner may distribute the collection {<EKS1,j, PSPK1>, . . . <EKSN,j, PSPKN>}, the signature and EKi to the participants of a distributed community (it may be assumed that the participants obtained CID and OPK already), including member 710. The contract owner may repeat these steps for each of the N enclaves that were provisioned. The other members, such as member 710, may verify that the parameters for the enclaves are acceptable according to requirements set forth within a community policy (i.e., processor, memory, latency, security, or software requirements, among others.) If the enclaves are acceptable under a community policy, they may be used by each member by provisioning them according to FIG. 7C. For example, enclave Ej is provisioned by sending EKi and CID from member 710 to Enclave 712. Enclave 712 may be configured to decrypt the EKi and authenticate K before using it, and once authentication has been completed, enclave 712 may be used by member 710 as described herein.

Included herein is a set of one or more flow charts representative of exemplary methodologies for performing novel aspects of the disclosed architecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the one or more methodologies shown herein, for example, in the form of a flow chart or flow diagram, are shown and described as a series of acts, it is to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are not limited by the order of acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith, occur in a different order and/or concurrently with other acts from that shown and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively be represented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in a state diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a methodology may be required for a novel implementation.

FIG. 8 illustrates a logic flow 800 according to an embodiment. At 802, a contract owner may be configured to register a contract identifier with a shared registry, or distributed ledger. The contract owner may be one of many members of a distributed computing environment, and may, in some embodiments, be predetermined by a policy. Registering the contract owner with the shared registry may include registering a CID and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Next, at 804 the contract owner may be configured to select contract enclaves from among a plurality of contract enclaves. In some embodiments, a distributed computing environment may include a policy that sets forth enclaves that should be used, or parameters for enclaves, as described above. In some embodiment, a risk tolerance may be received by a contract owner, whether in a policy or otherwise, that sets forth a minimum number of enclaves that achieve a level of risk. For example, the more enclaves used will lower the risk, but may utilize more performance. Thus, for certain applications that where security may not be critical, less enclaves may be used. However, for critical security applications, more enclaves may be used. While it is possible that multiple enclaves may be situated on the same device within the distributed computing environment, in most cases, enclaves will be geographically distributed.

At 806, the contract owner may request provisioning secrets, referred to as keyshares herein, from provisioning services, which may be predefined by a policy in some embodiments, similar to that of enclaves. In an embodiment, each request for keyshares may include a CID, and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave. Provisioning services may be configured to verify the CID and enclaves with the distributed ledger. Once generated, provisioning services may archive the keyshares for use in the future by storing them.

At 808, the contract owner may be configured to receive one or more keyshares from one or more provisioning services, the keyshares being randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare. Using this information, the contract owner may verify the received keyshares with the distributed ledger.

At 810, the contract owner may be configured to send the received keyshares for authentication by each of the selected enclaves. Once authenticated, each enclave may generate an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares. In some embodiments, each enclave may authenticate the received keyshares by verifying a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and the contract identifier with the distributed ledger.

Finally, at 812, the contract owner may receive the generated keys from each enclave at which point the contract owner may share the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members.

FIG. 9 illustrates an article of manufacture according to an embodiment. Storage medium 900 may comprise any computer-readable storage medium or machine-readable storage medium, such as an optical, magnetic or semiconductor storage medium. In some embodiments, storage medium 900 may comprise a non-transitory storage medium. In various embodiments, storage medium 900 may comprise an article of manufacture. In some embodiments, storage medium 900 may store computer-executable instructions, such as computer-executable instructions to implement logic flow 800, for example. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium or machine-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capable of storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatile memory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasable memory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples of computer-executable instructions may include any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. The embodiments are not limited to these examples.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system 1000. The centralized system 1000 may implement some or all of the structure and/or operations for the web services system 1020 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a single device 1010.

The device 1010 may comprise any electronic device capable of receiving, processing, and sending information for the web services system 1020. Examples of an electronic device may include without limitation a client device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a cellular telephone, ebook readers, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, set top box, wireless access point, base station, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

The device 1010 may execute processing operations or logic for the web services system 1020 using a processing component 1030. The processing component 1030 may comprise various hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software elements may include software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, software development programs, machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints, as desired for a given implementation.

The device 1010 may execute communications operations or logic for the web services system 1020 using communications component 1040. The communications component 1040 may implement any well-known communications techniques and protocols, such as techniques suitable for use with packet-switched networks (e.g., public networks such as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., the public switched telephone network), or a combination of packet-switched networks and circuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways and translators). The communications component 1040 may include various types of standard communication elements, such as one or more communications interfaces, network interfaces, network interface cards (NIC), radios, wireless transmitters/receivers (transceivers), wired and/or wireless communication media, physical connectors, and so forth. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media 1009, 1049 include wired communications media and wireless communications media. Examples of wired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads, printed circuit boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductor material, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagated signal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media may include acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and other wireless media.

The device 1010 may communicate with other devices 1005, 1045 over a communications media 1009, 1049, respectively, using communications signals 1007, 1047, respectively, via the communications component 1040. The devices 1005, 1045, may be internal or external to the device 1010 as desired for a given implementation.

For example, device 1005 may correspond to a client device such as a phone used by a user. Signals 1007 sent over media 1009 may therefore comprise communication between the phone and the web services system 1020 in which the phone transmits a request and receives a web page or other data in response.

FIG. 11 illustrates a block diagram of a distributed system 1100. The distributed system 1100 may distribute portions of the structure and/or operations for the disclosed embodiments across multiple computing entities. Examples of distributed system 1100 may include without limitation a client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shared database architecture, and other types of distributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

The distributed system 1100 may comprise a client device 1110 and a server device 1140. In general, the client device 1110 and the server device 1140 may be the same or similar to the client device 1010 as described with reference to FIG. 10. For instance, the client system 1110 and the server system 1140 may each comprise a processing component 1120, 1150 and a communications component 1130, 1160 which are the same or similar to the processing component 1030 and the communications component 1040, respectively, as described with reference to FIG. 10. In another example, the devices 1110, 1140 may communicate over a communications media 1105 using communications signals 1107 via the communications components 1130, 1160.

The client device 1110 may comprise or employ one or more client programs that operate to perform various methodologies in accordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, for example, the client device 1110 may implement some steps described with respect to FIG. 8.

The server device 1140 may comprise or employ one or more server programs that operate to perform various methodologies in accordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, for example, the server device 1140 may implement some steps described with respect to FIG. 8.

FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture 1200 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previously described. In one embodiment, the computing architecture 1200 may comprise or be implemented as part of an electronic device. Examples of an electronic device may include those described herein. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computing architecture 1200. For example, a component can be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a server and the server can be a component. One or more components can reside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to each other by various types of communications media to coordinate operations. The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directional exchange of information. For instance, the components may communicate information in the form of signals communicated over the communications media. The information can be implemented as signals allocated to various signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal. Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages. Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplary connections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and bus interfaces.

The computing architecture 1200 includes various common computing elements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors, co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals, interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards, multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by the computing architecture 1200.

As shown in FIG. 12, the computing architecture 1200 comprises a processing unit 1204, a system memory 1206 and a system bus 1208. The processing unit 1204 can be any of various commercially available processors, including without limitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® and Opteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded and secure processors; IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony® Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core (2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®, Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similar processors. Dual microprocessors, multi-core processors, and other multi-processor architectures may also be employed as the processing unit 1204.

The system bus 1208 provides an interface for system components including, but not limited to, the system memory 1206 to the processing unit 1204. The system bus 1208 can be any of several types of bus structure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of commercially available bus architectures. Interface adapters may connect to the system bus 1208 via a slot architecture. Example slot architectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA), Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral Component Interconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The computing architecture 1200 may comprise or implement various articles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may comprise a computer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capable of storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatile memory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasable memory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples of logic may include executable computer program instructions implemented using any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also be at least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of the operations described herein.

The system memory 1206 may include various types of computer-readable storage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, such as read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymer memory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase change or ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices (e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type of storage media suitable for storing information. In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 12, the system memory 1206 can include non-volatile memory 1210 and/or volatile memory 1213. A basic input/output system (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile memory 1210.

The computer 1202 may include various types of computer-readable storage media in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including an internal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 1214, a magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 1216 to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk 1218, and an optical disk drive 1220 to read from or write to a removable optical disk 1222 (e.g., a CD-ROM, DVD, or Blu-ray). The HDD 1214, FDD 1216 and optical disk drive 1220 can be connected to the system bus 1208 by a HDD interface 1224, an FDD interface 1226 and an optical drive interface 1228, respectively. The HDD interface 1224 for external drive implementations can include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatile and/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules can be stored in the drives and memory units 1210, 1213, including an operating system 1230, one or more application programs 1232, other program modules 1234, and program data 1236. In one embodiment, the one or more application programs 1232, other program modules 1234, and program data 1236 can include, for example, the various applications and/or components to implement the disclosed embodiments.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 1202 through one or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard 1238 and a pointing device, such as a mouse 1240. Other input devices may include microphones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remote controls, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger print readers, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers, touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs, trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 1204 through an input device interface 1242 that is coupled to the system bus 1208, but can be connected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serial port, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A display 1244 is also connected to the system bus 1208 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 1246. The display 1244 may be internal or external to the computer 1202. In addition to the display 1244, a computer typically includes other peripheral output devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computer 1202 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections via wire and/or wireless communications to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 1248. The remote computer 1248 can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer, portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the computer 1202, although, for purposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 1250 is illustrated. The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 1252 and/or larger networks, for example, a wide area network (WAN) 1254. Such LAN and WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to a global communications network, for example, the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 1202 is connected to the LAN 1252 through a wire and/or wireless communication network interface or adaptor 1256. The adaptor 1256 can facilitate wire and/or wireless communications to the LAN 1252, which may also include a wireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with the wireless functionality of the adaptor 1256.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 1202 can include a modem 1258, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 1254, or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 1254, such as by way of the Internet. The modem 1258, which can be internal or external and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus 1208 via the input device interface 1242. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 1202, or portions thereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 1250. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers can be used.

The computer 1202 is operable to communicate with wire and wireless devices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of standards, such as wireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g., IEEE 802.11 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at least Wi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wireless technologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefined structure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoc communication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radio technologies called IEEE 802.11x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure, reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to connect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks (which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).

FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary communications architecture 1300 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previously described. The communications architecture 1300 includes various common communications elements, such as a transmitter, receiver, transceiver, radio, network interface, baseband processor, antenna, amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by the communications architecture 1300.

As shown in FIG. 13, the communications architecture 1300 comprises includes one or more clients 1310 and servers 1340. The clients 1310 may implement the client device 1310, for example. The servers 1340 may implement the server device 1340, for example. The clients 1310 and the servers 1340 are operatively connected to one or more respective client data stores 1320 and server data stores 1350 that can be employed to store information local to the respective clients 1310 and servers 1340, such as cookies and/or associated contextual information.

The clients 1310 and the servers 1340 may communicate information between each other using a communication framework 1330. The communications framework 1330 may implement any well-known communications techniques and protocols. The communications framework 1330 may be implemented as a packet-switched network (e.g., public networks such as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), a circuit-switched network (e.g., the public switched telephone network), or a combination of a packet-switched network and a circuit-switched network (with suitable gateways and translators).

The communications framework 1330 may implement various network interfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to a communications network. A network interface may be regarded as a specialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces may employ connection protocols including without limitation direct connect, Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T, and the like), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular network interfaces, IEEE 802.11a-x network interfaces, IEEE 802.16 network interfaces, IEEE 802.20 network interfaces, and the like. Further, multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with various communications network types. For example, multiple network interfaces may be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast, multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing requirements dictate a greater amount speed and capacity, distributed network controller architectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, and otherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by clients 1310 and the servers 1340. A communications network may be any one and the combination of wired and/or wireless networks including without limitation a direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, a private network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g., the Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network (LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless network, a cellular network, and other communications networks.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” along with their derivatives. These terms mean that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression “coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms are not necessarily intended as synonyms for each other. For example, some embodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or “coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, may also mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with each other, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, the detailed descriptions herein may be presented in terms of program procedures executed on a computer or network of computers. These procedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms, such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mental operations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a human operator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of the operations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments. Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines for performing operations of various embodiments include general purpose digital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performing these operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer as selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently related to a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose machines may be used with programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these machines will appear from the description given.

In the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,” “second,” “third,” and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

What has been described above includes examples of the disclosed architecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe every conceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one of ordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinations and permutations are possible. Accordingly, the novel architecture is intended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

Example 1. A computer-implemented method for enclave provisioning, comprising: registering a contract owner with a shared registry; selecting a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; requesting a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receiving the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, sending the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receiving, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

Example 2. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.

Example 3. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Example 4. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.

Example 5. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, further comprising verifying the received keys.

Example 6. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.

Example 7. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).

Example 8. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.

Example 9. The computer-implemented method of Example 8, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication and encryption public keys of the enclave.

Example 10. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein received keyshares are archived by the provisioning services for the provisioning of additional enclaves.

Example 11. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the plurality of enclaves are distributed within a distributed computing system.

Example 12. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the contract owner is selected by a predefined policy.

Example 13. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the provisioning services are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 14. The computer-implemented method of Example 1, wherein the selected enclaves are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 15. The computer-implemented method of Example 14, wherein the number of selected enclaves within the plurality of enclaves is chosen based upon a received risk tolerance.

Example 16. A system for enclave provisioning, comprising: a contract owner device including one or more processor circuits, the contract owner device configured to: register the contract owner device with a shared registry; select a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; request a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receive the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, send the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receive, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

Example 17. The system of Example 16, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.

Example 18. The system of Example 16, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Example 19. The system of Example 16, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.

Example 20. The system of Example 16, further comprising verifying the received keys.

Example 21. The system of Example 16, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.

Example 22. The system of Example 16, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).

Example 23. The system of Example 16, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.

Example 24. The system of Example 23, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication encryption public keys of the enclave.

Example 25. The system of Example 16, wherein received keyshares are archived by the provisioning services for the provisioning of additional enclaves.

Example 26. The system of Example 16, wherein the plurality of enclaves are distributed within a distributed computing system.

Example 27. The system of Example 16, wherein the contract owner is selected by a predefined policy.

Example 28. The system of Example 16, wherein the provisioning services are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 29. The system of Example 16, wherein the selected enclaves are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 30. The system of Example 29, wherein the number of selected enclaves within the plurality of enclaves is chosen based upon a received risk tolerance.

Example 31. An article comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by processing circuitry of a contract owner device, the instructions to cause the contract owner device to: register a contract owner with a shared registry; select a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; request a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receive the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, send the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receive, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

Example 32. The article of Example 31, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.

Example 33. The article of Example 31, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Example 34. The article of Example 31, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.

Example 35. The article of Example 31, further comprising verifying the received keys.

Example 36. The article of Example 31, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.

Example 37. The article of Example 31, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).

Example 38. The article of Example 31, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.

Example 39. The article of Example 38, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication encryption public keys of the enclave.

Example 40. The article of Example 31, wherein received keyshares are archived by the provisioning services for the provisioning of additional enclaves.

Example 41. The article of Example 31, wherein the plurality of enclaves are distributed within a distributed computing system.

Example 42. The article of Example 31, wherein the contract owner is selected by a predefined policy.

Example 43. The article of Example 31, wherein the provisioning services are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 44. The article of Example 31, wherein the selected enclaves are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 45. The article of Example 44, wherein the number of selected enclaves within the plurality of enclaves is chosen based upon a received risk tolerance.

Example 46. An apparatus, comprising: at least one memory; at least one processor; and logic, at least a portion of the logic comprised in hardware and executed by the at least one processor, the logic to: register a contract owner with a shared registry; select a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; request a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receive the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned, for each of the selected enclaves, send the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receive, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

Example 47. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.

Example 48. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Example 49. The apparatus of Example 46, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.

Example 50. The apparatus of Example 46, further comprising verifying the received keys.

Example 51. The apparatus of Example 46, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.

Example 52. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).

Example 53. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.

Example 54. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication encryption public keys of the enclave.

Example 55. The apparatus of Example 54, wherein received keyshares are archived by the provisioning services for the provisioning of additional enclaves.

Example 56. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the plurality of enclaves are distributed within a distributed computing system.

Example 57. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the contract owner is selected by a predefined policy.

Example 58. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the provisioning services are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 59. The apparatus of Example 46, wherein the selected enclaves are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 60. The apparatus of Example 59, wherein the number of selected enclaves within the plurality of enclaves is chosen based upon a received risk tolerance.

Example 61. An apparatus for enclave provisioning, comprising: means for registering a contract owner with a shared registry; means for selecting a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; means for requesting a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; means for receiving the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, means for sending the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and means for receiving, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.

Example 62. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.

Example 63. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.

Example 64. The apparatus of Example 61, further comprising means for verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.

Example 65. The apparatus of Example 61, further comprising means for verifying the received keys.

Example 66. The apparatus of Example 61, further comprising means for sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.

Example 67. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).

Example 68. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.

Example 69. The apparatus of Example 68, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication encryption public keys of the enclave.

Example 70. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein received keyshares are archived by the provisioning services for the provisioning of additional enclaves.

Example 71. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the plurality of enclaves are distributed within a distributed computing system.

Example 72. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the contract owner is selected by a predefined policy.

Example 73. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the provisioning services are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 74. The apparatus of Example 61, wherein the selected enclaves are selected by a predefined policy.

Example 75. The apparatus of Example 74, wherein the number of selected enclaves within the plurality of enclaves is chosen based upon a received risk tolerance. 

1. A computer-implemented method for enclave provisioning, comprising: registering a contract owner with a shared registry; selecting a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; requesting a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receiving the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, sending the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receiving, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.
 3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.
 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising verifying the received keys.
 6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.
 7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).
 8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.
 9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein a response from a provisioning service is based upon verification within the shared registry of the CID, and the authentication and encryption public keys of the enclave.
 10. A system for enclave provisioning, comprising: a contract owner device including one or more processor circuits, the contract owner device configured to: register the contract owner device with a shared registry; select a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; request a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receive the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, send the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receive, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.
 13. The system of claim 10, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.
 14. The system of claim 10, further comprising verifying the received keys.
 15. The system of claim 10, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.
 16. The system of claim 10, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).
 17. The system of claim 10, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave.
 18. An article comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by processing circuitry of a contract owner device, the instructions to cause the contract owner device to: register a contract owner with a shared registry; select a subset of enclaves to be provisioned from among a plurality of enclaves; request a keyshare from one or more provisioning services for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; receive the requested keyshares from each provisioning service for each of the subset of enclaves to be provisioned; for each of the selected enclaves, send the received keyshares for verification by the enclave; and receive, from each of the selected enclaves, an authenticated and encrypted key derived from the received keyshares.
 19. The article of claim 18, wherein the keyshares received from the one or more provisioning services are randomly generated portions of an encryption key, each of which is signed by a private key of the provisioning service that generated the keyshare.
 20. The article of claim 18, wherein registering the contract owner with the shared registry includes registering a contract identifier (CID) and a public key (OPK) with the shared registry.
 21. The article of claim 18, further comprising verifying the received keyshares with the shared registry.
 22. The article of claim 18, further comprising verifying the received keys.
 23. The article of claim 18, further comprising sharing the received keys, a contract identifier (CID), and a public key (OPK) with one or more members of a distributed system.
 24. The article of claim 18, wherein the received authenticated and encrypted keys derived from the received keyshares have been authenticated by verifying, by the enclave, a signature of the provisioning service, a signature of the contract owner, and a contract identifier (CID).
 25. The article of claim 18, wherein each request for keyshares includes a contract identifier (CID), and the authentication and encryption public keys for an enclave. 